


A Quiet Evening at Home

by essenceofmeanin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Before Dean goes to Hell, Gen, Homelessness, Sam Winchester is trying, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-03
Updated: 2008-09-03
Packaged: 2019-01-07 13:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12234189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essenceofmeanin/pseuds/essenceofmeanin
Summary: Set mid-s3.  The boys run out of easy cash; Sam pays attention to what he's going to miss when his brother goes to Hell. Beta'd bygirlguidejones, who is made of magic.





	A Quiet Evening at Home

Title: A Quiet Evening at Home  
Author: [](https://essenceofmeanin.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://essenceofmeanin.livejournal.com/)**essenceofmeanin**  
Rating/Pairing: Gen, none  
Wordcount: 1,200  
Summary: Set mid-s3. The boys run out of easy cash; Sam pays attention to what he's going to miss. Beta'd by [](https://girlguidejones.livejournal.com/profile)[**girlguidejones**](https://girlguidejones.livejournal.com/), who is made of magic.

“Peanut butter.”

“Check.”

“Loaf of bread?”

“Check.”

“How’s the first aid kit?”

“Umm…. I picked up butterfly band aids and some hydrogen peroxide. Other than that we’re pretty well stocked. Oh, I grabbed some floss and stuff too.”

“Toothpaste? What about snacks?”

“Check and check. I even got those weird energy bars you like.”

“Awesome. I’ll go check out – meet me out front the office or something.”

Sam snaps his phone closed and shoulders the grocery bags. He winds his way through the afternoon shopping crowd and out into the parking lot. The skies are grey, heavy clouds off in the distance but Sam thinks it’ll be a while yet before they break. It’s unseasonably warm, enough so that he’s sticky and sweating beneath his layers.

Sam stretches in the driver’s seat while the engine warms up, scratches his belly lazily. He hasn’t got the knack of listening to the revolutions or whatever the way Dean does to tell exactly when she’s ready to drive, so he just waits five minutes as a rule of thumb – ten on a cold day. He’s stalled the Impala out in enough parking lots and backwoods highways to have learned patience with the old engine. He frowns at the gas gauge, taps it with his thumb. Sam just spent all their money on groceries. He hopes they don’t have to break out the emergency five gallon stash in the trunk to get wherever they’re going for the night, but with gas prices the way they are and their _twelve highway miles to the gallon_ beast they’re gonna have to figure out something soon. He pats the dashboard absently.

Dean’s slouched on a curb in front of the 7-11 across the street from the motel, slushie in hand and duffel bags full of clean laundry stacked next to him. There’s a ziplock baggie full of single use shampoos bulging out of the duffel pocket with the broken zipper. It’d been worth the thirty-five bucks for the motel room to get the laundry done and one last night in a real bed. Dark clouds are piling up behind him and Sam hopes they’re driving away from the storm. Hard to tell with the wind the way it’s been. He pulls the Impala up inches away from his brother’s boots, but Dean just squints at him, not scared a bit. Sam slams the door as he climbs out.

Dean hooks a finger into Sam’s belt loop to pull him off balance and send him stumbling past. When Sam reels around, fist raised, Dean shoves the slushie into his hand without looking at him. Dean’s all nervous energy today, not talking much past the single syllable. His eyes are an apology Sam doesn’t really need.

Dean makes them tuna melts on the hood of the car, scrounging mayo packets out of the glove box and mixing the tuna straight in the can with a plastic fork. He folds the sandwiches carefully in foil and tucks them onto the engine block, wedged a bit where they won’t fall off. Sam’s never had tuna melts any way but this, never quite thought they’d taste the same. Dean once cooked a whole chicken on the engine on a long haul day, popping the hood every bathroom break to pinch the foil and rotate the bird around. They ate it with their fingers and slices of stale bread, seasoned with McDonald’s salt’n’pepper packets, and it was the best meal Sam had had in weeks.

They pass a few towns down the highway before pulling off on a nowhere frontage road. Sam prefers sleeping in the country – less chance of a high beam flashlight rapping on their window with a cop behind it. It’s an inconspicuous enough place to park for the night, far enough off the beaten track to have some trees and a murky slough creeping through it. Dean grins ruefully at him and shrugs.

It usually takes about twenty minutes of driving before the tuna melts are done, so they’re about perfect by the time either of them thinks about popping the hood. Sam’s always loved the gooey cheese and the way the mayonnaise goes a little funny tasting cooking the sweet tuna. Tuna melts had been about the only thing he’d eat for months at a time when he was little, and it always brings him straight back to this. They eat on the trunk of the car; Sam scooted back against the rear window and trying to swing his long legs, just because he can. It doesn’t really work. The slough makes the air swampy. Sam listens to the frogs croak and pretends they’re somewhere else. The Everglades, maybe.

Dean eats mechanically, his mind clearly elsewhere too. Sam bumps his shoulder and crooks a smile at him to show his brother that he doesn’t really mind camping out anymore. Sam loved it as a kid and grew to hate it as a teenager, too tall to fit and feeling like an after school special living out of their car. Maybe he’s just used to it – this isn’t the first time they’ve had to camp out since Sam left Stanford – but it feels much more like home than any motel room could.

“Flip you for the backseat?”

Dean glances over at him, garbles an answer with his mouth full. “Nah, you can have the back.” He swallows, swipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “Can’t ever sleep back there anyway.”

Sam looks at him skeptically. “You like getting jabbed by the shifter while you’re sleeping?”

“Sounds kinda dirty, Sammy.” Sam rolls his eyes at Dean’s smirk, shoves him half-heartedly. Dean pushes him back and Sam slips a few feet until his shoes are touching the ground. Sam scrambles back up to where he can sprawl, taking advantage of the leg room while he can. Dean squints at him, and they share a smile before Dean’s gaze slips away again. “I appreciate being able to get up ‘n go, y’know?” Sam _hmms_ in agreement, kind of sorry he brought it up.

They settle down slowly. Night arrives without the storm but the air presses heavily down around them just the same. The humidity belies the fact that they’re not far enough south for fireflies. Sam feels a bit lost without the nightly rounds of protective measures to fortify their motel room even though he knows the Impala is far safer after all these years than any rented room could be. The ritual is soothing, though. Dean breaks out a needle and the new floss to keep his hands busy patching rips in jeans and jacket pockets. Sam hands up a few shirts that he’s been meaning to put right. They keep the radio off to conserve the battery, and the only sound is Dean flicking the lighter to burn the ends of the floss once he’s tied off the knots. Sam knows that floss stretches instead of breaks, and will probably hold far longer than either of them will need. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders quietly why Dean bothers.


End file.
